Steven Soderbergh Is Still Disappointed That ‘The Hunt for Ben Solo’ Didn’t Happen

Gizmodo · Feb 18, 2026 · Collected from RSS

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Steven Soderbergh fully thought he was going to make a Star Wars movie. As has been previously and widely reported, Soderbergh and star Adam Driver worked for several years on crafting a Ben Solo movie that everyone at Lucasfilm loved. However, Disney didn’t love it and killed it. In a new interview, the Oscar-winning director of Traffic, Ocean’s Eleven, Solaris, and Magic Mike discussed that disappointment and revealed he had earmarked two years of his life to head to a galaxy far, far away. “I thought the next two years of my life were going to be spent making a Star Wars movie,” Soderbergh told Brooklyn Magazine. “And so, in the immediate aftermath of that, my response was, ‘You better start getting some shit generated so you can go back to work.'” As a result, he wrote four new scripts. The interview, which you can read in full here, apparently happened soon after Kathleen Kennedy announced she was stepping down as president of Lucasfilm. At that time, Kennedy expressed disappointment at Disney’s decision not to make Soderbergh’s movie, and the director reacted to Kennedy’s quotes. “It was no surprise that she was frustrated,” he said. “We were all frustrated. You know, that was two and a half years of free work for me and Adam [Driver] and Rebecca Blunt. When Adam and I discussed him talking about it publicly, I said, ‘Look, do not editorialize or speculate about the why. Just say what happened, because all we know is what happened.’ The stated reason was ‘We don’t think Ben Solo could be alive.’ And that was all we were told. And so there’s nothing to do about it, you know, except move on.” “And as I posted, I’d kind of made the movie in my head, and just felt bad that nobody else was going to get to see it,” Soderbergh continued. “I thought the conversation was strictly going to be a practical one—where they go, what is this going to cost? And I had a really good answer for that. But it never even got to that point. It’s insane. We’re all very disappointed.” We love that while Soderbergh had stuff like budgetary concerns in mind, Disney’s actual reason for turning it down had nothing to do with that. “We don’t think Ben Solo could be alive,” said the people who brought back Emperor Palpatine just a few years earlier. There’s much speculation that, now that Disney has a new CEO, Josh D’Amaro, and Lucasfilm has new presidents, Dave Filoni and Lynwen Brennan, maybe Soderbergh and Driver will be asked to make the movie again. Hey, anything is possible. But we think this ship has sailed. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.